Is it time to throw out the creative director and rely on big data to predict what consumers want to wear next? Assistant Professor Ayelet Israeli discusses how Gap CEO Art Peck considers this bold idea to boost sales.
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Biosimilars are large-molecule drugs that, while not an exact copy of already-approved large-molecule drugs, have been shown to be therapeutically equivalent. Much like generic drugs, which become available when a small-molecule drug goes off patent, biosimilars are lower in cost than their reference products and present an opportunity for savings when large-molecule drugs’ patents expire. Biosimilars have been available in the United States only since 2015 but have been regulated, approved, and sold in Europe for over a decade. This paper examines the European experience to help inform policy design and institutional choices for the United States. Topics covered include the entry of distributors and unique products; predictors of average product prices following biosimilar competition; and penetration of biosimilars as a share of total sales.

By tracing the often-circuitous path from National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding to patented innovations, this research examines the effects of public science on private sector innovation in the life sciences.

Raj Choudhury and Tarun Khanna examine the history of herbal patent applications, challenging a stereotype that characterizes Western firms as innovators and emerging markets as imitators.
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Government agencies can be "captured" by the very companies or industries they regulate. Looking at how genetically altered food products are approved, Assistant Professor Shon R. Hiatt finds unexpected influencers on the US Department of Agriculture. Key concepts include: "Regulatory capture" describes the phenomenon whereby regulatory agencies tasked with serving the public instead end up advancing the interests of the companies they regulate. Traditional theories of capture such as lobbying and campaign contributions had little effect on whether the US Department of Agriculture approved any particular genetically altered agriculture product. What did seem to affect the approval process was the influence of third-party groups such as associations and even related regulatory agencies.
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Does gender affect whether a university scientist will be invited to work with for-profit companies? Indeed it does. A new paper finds that male professors receive more opportunities than their female counterparts to join scientific advisory boards and start new companies. Research, focusing on the biotechnology field, was conducted by Haas School of Business professor Waverly W. Ding, MIT Sloan professor Fiona Murray, and HBS professor Toby E. Stuart. Key concepts include: University-employed scientists helped to found at least half of the publicly traded biotech firms in existence today. Women scientists receive far fewer invitations than men to join scientific advisory boards, and so male scientists are more than twice as likely as female scientists to become formal board advisors. When female scientists do receive invitations to join boards, they generally come from small start-ups with limited financial backing, rather than from high-profile companies backed by high-status venture capitalists. The corporate gender gap increases among scientists employed at elite universities or academic departments. However, the gender gap decreases at schools with formal technology transfer offices, indicating that institutional support can help women overcome obstacles to entry into commercial science.
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In science-based industries, innovation requires bridging the boundary between universities and companies. As entrepreneurial faculty venture into the world of commerce by building relationships and reputations in industry, company researchers and dealmakers seek access to the distributed knowledge base that resides within the community of scholars. But what happens within organizations when scientists venture deeply into the world of academe? In this look at one influential life sciences company, Christopher C. Liu of the Rotman School of Management and Toby E. Stuart of Harvard Business School find important connections between publishing, the allocation of rewards within the company, and the structure of the communication network inside and beyond the borders of the organization. Key concepts include: Researchers who publish successfully were rewarded by the company with an increased bonus. These publishers not only received more remuneration, they also attracted more of their managers' attention than did non-publishers. Publishers had significantly more correspondents in universities than do non-publishers. E-mail data provide direct evidence that publishing correlated with a company's access to the informal networks of the broader scientific community. However, publishers made a potentially negative tradeoff: As they spanned boundaries with the academic community, their importance in their company's communication network was weakened. Employees who are the best networked beyond the firm's boundaries should be precisely those people who would ideally occupy central positions within the firm. Yet in the study, these same individuals seemed to shift the locus of their interaction toward communities away from the firm.
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The unique challenges of managing and leading science-based businesses—certain to be a driver of this century's new economy—demand new management paradigms. At Harvard Business School, the opportunities start just across the street. From HBS Alumni Bulletin. Key concepts include: Despite the hundreds of billions of dollars invested in biotech in recent decades, most biotech companies do not turn a profit. Science-based companies require a different kind of leadership, which HBS intends to develop through research, analysis and teaching. Harvard's new science complex being built across from Harvard Business School presents many opportunities for cross-fertilization.
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With the possible exception of the Internal Revenue Service, no other governmental agency touches the lives of more Americans than the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which ensures the safety of $1.5 trillion worth of consumer goods and medicines. Harvard Business School professor Arthur A. Daemmrich discusses the impact and challenges of the agency and his new book, Perspectives on Risk and Regulation: The FDA at 100.
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Perhaps no industry has caught the research attention of Harvard Business School faculty as much as health care. Researchers are investigating business-focused solutions on everything from improving team work among surgical teams to developing market motivations that increase the use of water purification in poor villages. Key concepts include: The $2 trillion American health care system has grown bloated and overly expensive, and it delivers poor service to many patients. Harvard Business School faculty are looking at the system through a business management perspective to recommend changes in almost all aspects of health care research and delivery. Around the world, HBS researchers are studying ways to improve medical services to the poor using techniques that include everything from motivational marketing to microfinance.
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After thirty years the numbers are in on the biotech business—and it's not what we expected. The industry in aggregate has lost money. R&D performance has not radically improved. The problem? In a new book, Professor Gary Pisano points to systemic flaws as well as unhealthy tensions between science and business. Key concepts include: The biotech industry has underperformed expectations, caught in the conflicting objectives and requirements between science and business. The industry needs to realign business models, organizational structures, and financing arrangements so they will place greater emphasis on long-term learning over short-term monetization of intellectual property. A lesson to managers: Break away from a strategy of doing many narrow deals and focus on fewer but deeper relationships.
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What will it take for biotechnology to fulfill its economic potential? Participants need to think twice about the strategies and assumptions that are driving the industry, says HBS professor Gary P. Pisano.
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On the cusp of what most analysts agree will be the age of biotechology, Professor Gary P. Pisano and four HBS alums on the front lines of the biotech revolution offer their views of the challenges, issues and opportunities facing the industry in the laboratory, the boardroom and the marketplace.
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